419 scam: "Powerball Lotto"<Lotto@powerball.com> Check If You're Among The Lucky Winners

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"419" Scam – Advance Fee / Fake Lottery Scam

The so-called "419" scam is a type of fraud dominated by criminals from Nigeria and other countries in Africa. Victims of the scam are promised a large amount of money, such as a lottery prize, inheritance, money sitting in some bank account, etc.

Victims never receive this non-existent fortune but are tricked into sending their money to the criminals, who remain anonymous. They hide their real identity and location by using fake names and fake postal addresses as well as communicating via anonymous free email accounts and mobile phones.

Keep in mind that scammers DO NOT use their real names when defrauding people.
The criminals either abuse names of real people or companies or invent names or addresses.
Any real people or companies mentioned below have NO CONNECTION to the scammers!

Read more about such scams here or in our 419 FAQ. Use the Scam-O-Matic to verify suspect emails.

Click here to report a problem with this page.

Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

This email uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "million united states dollars" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- ",000,000" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
This email message is a fake lottery scam. Consider the following facts about real lotteries:
1. They don't notify winners by email.
2. You can't win without first buying a lottery ticket.
3. They don't randomly select email addresses to award prizes to.
4. They don't use free email accounts (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) to communicate with you.
5. They don't tell you to call a mobile phone number.
6. They don't tell you to keep your winnings secret.
7. They will never ask a winner to pay any fees to receive a prize!

Fraud email example:

From: "Powerball Lotto" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <lottopowerball@rocketmail.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 18:47:58 -0500
Subject: Check If You're Among The Lucky Winners

Congratulation,

The Board of Directors,
Facebook Anniversary Promo in collaboration Powerball Lottery
with Microsoft Worldwide Co-operation Management
announces to you as 1 of our 30 lucky winners of this Year's draw held
on 1st of Jan 2013.

This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of US$2,000,000:00 (Two Million United States Dollars) only for 2012 Prize promotion which is organized by Facebook Anniversary Promo in collaboration Powerball Lottery with Microsoft Worldwide Co-operation Management. MICRO SOFT collects all the email addresses of the people that are active online, among the millions that subscribed to Yahoo and Hotmail and few from other e-mail providers. Six people are selected every two years to benefit from this promotion and you are one of the Selected Winners.

All 30 winning Email Addresses were randomly selected from a batch of 786,000 international emails world-wide.

And your email address emerged alongside with 29 others as the Third category winner. Consequently, you have therefore been approved for a total pay out of US$2,000,000:00 (Two Million United States Dollars) only.

The following particulars are attached to your lottery payment order.

(i) REFERENCE NUMBER: 28234522
(ii) WINNING NUMBER: 02241 30 35 48
(iii)Ticked Number: 14-056-278
(iv) Serial Number: s/n-01025
(v) Lucky Numbers: 724-595-62-07-45
(vi) Security Code MSW/AUG/SS09

Please Verify To Claim Your Winning for immediate access

Thank you for being part of this promotional award program. Our special thanks and gratitude to Mr Mark Zuckerberg and his associates. We wish you the best of luck as you spend your good fortune.

Thank you,
Powerball Lotto.

Anti-fraud resources:

What can you do when you receive 419 spam